Amaranthus hypochondriacusL.

Prince-of-Wales feather

WFO wfo-0000530285 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 3 observations

This species has been photographed under an open licence only 3 times, so some figures below are different views of the same plant, taken on the same day, rather than different individuals. They are usually different parts of it: the leaf, the flower, the bark.

Amaranthus hypochondriacus, photographed by Robert H. Wardell
fig. a Robert H. Wardell, CC0 1.0 / 2020-09-17 / obs. 95826759

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

The specimen a real sheet, in a real collection

Herbarium
The New York Botanical Garden
Accession
85367
Filed as
Amaranthus hypochondriacus L.
Det. by
J. J. Strudwick 1984-01-01
Collected
J. J. Strudwick 1984-09-12
Origin
US
The sheet
View the digitised specimen (CC BY 4.0)

A real pressed plant, in a real collection, under the accession number above. Not an illustration of one. The holding institution does not serve this sheet’s image to third parties, so there is no photograph here. The record is real and the link goes to it. Where we hold no openly licensed sheet for a species this section is simply absent, and where a sheet never recorded who determined it, that field stays empty rather than being filled in. Roughly half of all herbarium sheets never recorded a determiner, which is ordinary.

Native range 11 botanical countries

Regions where Amaranthus hypochondriacus is native: Kansas, Mexico Central, Mexico Gulf, Mexico Northeast, Mexico Northwest, Mexico Southwest, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Texas, Wisconsin KansasMexico CentralMexico GulfMexico NortheastMexico NorthwestMexico SouthwestMinnesotaMissouriNebraskaTexasWisconsin
Native distribution of Amaranthus hypochondriacus, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Kansas KAN NORTHERN AMERICA
Mexico Central MXC
Mexico Gulf MXG
Mexico Northeast MXE
Mexico Northwest MXN
Mexico Southwest MXS
Minnesota MIN
Missouri MSO
Nebraska NEB
Texas TEX
Wisconsin WIS

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Where it actually grows measured, from 37 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -9.2 °C -1.6 °C 9.9 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 21.3 °C 25.1 °C 29.1 °C
Annual rainfall 512 mm 652 mm 2,149 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 23 mm 109 mm 256 mm

It is found where winters bring hard frost. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 37 research-grade observations of Amaranthus hypochondriacus that carry a coordinate, and this is the range those places actually span. The 5th and 95th percentiles are used rather than the minimum and maximum, because a single cultivated specimen in a heated conservatory should not widen a tropical plant's range to the Arctic.

This is not a hardiness zone. A USDA zone is the average annual extreme minimum temperature. The figure above is the mean daily minimum of the coldest month, which is a different quantity and is typically far warmer. Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one.

Also published as 20 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Amaranthus anardana Buch.-Ham.
  • Amaranthus atrosanguineus Hort.Lugd.
  • Amaranthus aureus Besser
  • Amaranthus bernhardii Moq.
  • Amaranthus flavus L.
  • Amaranthus frumentaceus Buch.-Ham.
  • Amaranthus hybridus Vell.
  • Amaranthus hybridus f. hypochondiacus (L.) B.L.Rob.
  • Amaranthus hybridus f. hypochondriacus (L.) B.L.Rob.
  • Amaranthus hybridus subsp. hypochondriacus (L.) Thell.
  • Amaranthus hybridus subsp. powellii (S.Watson) T.Karlsson
  • Amaranthus hybridus var. erythrostachys Moq.
  • Amaranthus hybridus var. hypochondriacus (L.) B.L.Rob.
  • Amaranthus hypochondriacus var. macrostachys Moq.
  • Amaranthus hypochondriacus var. monstrosus Moq.
  • Amaranthus hypochondriacus var. racemosus Moq.
  • Amaranthus hypochondriacus var. tortuosus Moq.
  • Amaranthus macrostachyus Mérat ex Moq.
  • Amaranthus monstrosus Cat.
  • Amaranthus obovatus S.Watson

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.